Dining Deluxe

[TwistGrl101]

We have never dined deluxe, but we have also never tried a 2 TS restaurant. For our upcoming trip, we want to try California Grill, Le Cellier, and CRT for sure, so I am thinking about upgrading to deluxe and doing a nice dinner every night, but the only thing is that we felt like we already had too much food on the regular dining plan...

Thoughts?

 

[AimeeMichele]

We've done Deluxe dining our last two trips. Every morning we have a character breakfast and then dinner at a Signature restaurant or a dinner show. We use a snack credit here and there, but the character buffet breakfasts really fill us up. For the left over snack credits, I always get the Mickey rise krispy bars so that my oldest nephew can pass them out to the kids in his class. We also always have some credits left over the last day, so we have lunch at Gasparilla's Grill or get some sandwiches and salads to go and eat those later (always so much better than airplane food). Depending on your touring style you may like it or think it's a waste of time (too much time away from the parks). It works out perfectly for us as my nephews and niece always want a break from the parks (overstimulation is my best guess) and then we don't have to wait in line for them to meet the characters since we meet the ones they want to at breakfast with the exception of Rapunzel of course.

 

[shenaniganzz]

We really like DxDP. We also like breaks from the parks and a relaxing sit down at the end of the day. We found most days we didn't need a lunch and could have easily done with just a snack (and did this)... so planning a few signature dinners was totally feasible. We still had snack credits to burn the last day too!

 

[melifeld]

We leave in 9 days for our first Deluxe trip. We booked the free dining deal and upgraded to deluxe. We have ADRs for a different signature restaurant each day.

We have a 4 yo DS, but do full days in the parks (no mid-day breaks). We decided that we would do 2 TS meals per day this trip. The TS meals will give us a chance to sit and relax. So we have booked late breakfasts/early lunches in the parks, then signature dinners either in the park where we will be (Le Cellier, CRT and Brown Derby) or at different resorts (Flying Fish, Narcoossee's, Yachtsman Steakhouse, Jiko).

If you want to do signature restaurants, and want to eat TS daily then you are better off with DxDDP or paying out of pocket, depending on the deal you are getting and your plans.

Whatever you decide, have a great time.

 

[kelleigh1]

Hubby and I are going to do the DxDP on our October trip. For 6 out of 7 days, we have 2 TS meals planned. One of those is CRT for breakfast, but all the other 2TS are for dinner. We figure that will be a good use of the credits. There are so many 2TS we want to try so it works out well.

 

[Bettie]

We went last year at spring break when it was super-crowded and super-hot, and it was sooo nice to have a place to go sit in the AC (at least most of them had decent AC...) and get a break from the parks. Plus we did character breakfasts each day, which served double duty of not having to stand in hour-long lines for that, as well as a couple of signature dinners and CRT one night. We had some snack credits left over on the last day (don't exactly understand how...we bought water + snack each every day I think!) and my girls LOVED being able to stock up on treats to take home. (Rice krispie Mickeys for everyone!) Plus, so many of the restaurants are just experiences in and of themselves that my kids loved, e.g. Coral Reef, Sci-Fi Dine-In.

We are going again in a few weeks, and I hemmed and hawed over it for a while, but ultimately when I started making ADRs for what we wanted to do that I was going to run out of credits quickly if i stuck with the regular dining plan. For us it just works -- our family loves to eat out and now I consider it part of the experience of Disney, and I definitely save money even on the Dx plan. For other families, it might not work out for your style. But we loved it!

 

[havoc315]

The deluxe is not necessarily *more* food than the regular DDP. It depends how you use it. You can use it to primarily increase quality.
We do a 2-credit meal every day. (On rare days, we even do 2 2-credit meals). Thus, we have the same number of meals as the basic DDP. And it's not as if TS meals are heavier than CS meals -- plenty of CS meals can be quite heavy.

Thus -- for breakfast, instead of having to pay OOP or going breakfast in the room, you can do a light breakfast with snack credits. (A fruit bowl, cup of yogurt, slice of toast, etc).
Lunch - Instead of a CS meal, a 1-credit TS meal. If you have a simple salad as your appetizer, it really isn't "more food" than CS, just higher quality.
Dinner -- Instead of a 1-credit mediocre TS restaurant, do a 2-credit pretty good quality signature restaurant.

Overall, you have used your entitlements, gotten better food, without necessarily getting more food.

 

[arcticdisneylovers]

We usually do a character meal for breakfast and a signature for supper. With the occasional use of snack credits or light lunch. We love DxDDP

 

[christine*]

If doing deluxe I would recommend doing a signature meal everyday. Maybe a breakfast or early lunch and then a late dinner with some snacks in-between. Otherwise 3 meals in one day is a lot to eat. It can be a lot of food. But I'm also the type of person who doesn't feel obligated to even try and eat everything served to me.

 

[3pletprincesses]

We've done deluxe twice this year with our 5 yo triplets and are planning the same for August. We uaully do character breakfast and snacks during the day and signature meal at night. When we have left over snacks we go over to Epcot (Germany) and buy caramel stuff to bring home. We were debatting doing the regular plan this August as we will have a baby in tow but we just can't. My girls love to try food therefor signature meals are great. We take tha time to talk and laugh and it's a welcome break. Even after paying tips, we still saved $400 last May as a family of 5 and we can say we had really good food. Beware tho that tips add up fast.

 

[myramsy]

We love the deluxe dining plan. Every night we had a nice relaxing supper where we talked and laughed about our day. But to get the most out of the deluxe plan be sure to book your reservations 180 days in advance!

 

[MagicalMawMaw]

We love the deluxe plan. We also enjoy sitting down to relax at lunch & supper & don't care if we lose park time.

We usually schedule an early lunch & a late supper...mostly signatures...but Ohana is always on the supper list too.

On a few days we do a early breakfast, lunch around 1 p.m. & supper late. We only do this a couple of times...mostly because I have several extra credits & we use them to try a new place for breakfast. On those days I scheduled lighter lunch type places.

We never use our snacks though. We are never hungry for a snack on the deluxe plan. However, we use all our snack credits to buy candy for the kiddos & grandkiddos so it doesn't go to waste.